Media Definitions of Cold War Reality

Article excerpt

A student beginning PhD studies in 2002 will scarcely remember the cold war. She would have been perhaps twelve years old when the Berlin Wall fell and 14 when the Soviet Union ceased to be. For her, her classmates, and anyone younger than them, the cold war really is history.

Media Definitions of Cold War Reality could have been written with the post-cold war generation in mind. This collection of 15 articles by Soderlund, often with co-authors, examines media treatment of the cold war in the Caribbean Basin (Central America and the Caribbean). The cases range from the 1953 crisis in British Guiana to events in Haiti in 1993. As media reports focus on leaders, we again meet Cheddi Jagan, Carlos Castillo Armas, Juan Bosch, and Maurice Bishop; of course, Fidel Castro has a prominent role.